The (mis)adventures of a backwoods North Carolina, creative, crafty, do-it-myselfer because I like to keep it cheap, "I craft to stay sane", stay at home Mommy of 3 absolutely wonderful (most of the time) children!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I have an addiction ;)

My name is Savannah and I've been an addict for most of my life ;) I'm a jar-aholic! I love any kind of glass vessel...but mostly Mason jars! As a kid...I collected all kinds of glass bottles and jars...coke bottles, pickle jars, apple juice bottles, baby food jars, even peanut butter jars. We drank from Mason jars, collected lightening bugs in pickle jars, stored small items such as buttons or safety pins in baby food jars, organized pens and such in peanut butter jars and there is a really funny story about an apple juice bottle (when used to be sold in little glass bottles) that I MAY share with you one day...just not today...lol. I'd find old liquor or wine bottles on the side of the road and I'd take them home, wash them, remove the label and stick a flower or rocks in them just to decorate my room. Now that I'm "grown" I still have an obsession with glass bottles and jars. We have remodeled our kitchen recently and I've decided that my decor theme will be Mason Jars...and of course I've picked a theme that you can't buy pre-made decor for so I'm improvising. So over the next month I'll be posting randomly about my Mason Jar kitchen. Today I'll share with you how I customized a few jars to match my color scheme PERFECTLY. All I needed was my jars, the left over paint from the wall trim, a long paint brush, a cookie cooling rack and some Dollar Tree flowers.

I poured a little paint in the bottom of the jar, spread it out all over the inside of the jar with my paint brush, turned it upside down on a cheap old cooling rack with (newspapers underneath) and let it dry overnight. The rack isn't technically necessary...I just didn't want a pool of paint in the bottom which would occur if it was left upright to dry. So I flipped it upside down to let the paint drip down.

It may not look clean from the inside but the outside is virtually perfect and since I'm putting flowers in it, those imperfections will be covered up. Now with this technique, obviously, you couldn't put real flowers and water in it but for artificial flowers...its perfect! Real flowers do not fare well in my home so I tend to go fake :) If you put artificial ones in a clear jar...you can still see those ugly plastic stems. But with painting the inside, instead of the outside, you get the color you want and still see all the beauty that the jar has to offer.

I bought cheap flower bunches at the Dollar Tree in creams and whites to compliment my kitchen colors, cut them off at the base, and arranged them like a bouquet and then just dropped them in my pretty little jars! I made 2 of them to put in the empty corners of my counter top. I love them but my husband thinks I've gone Mason Jar Mad!

I would also like to share with you how I keep Raylan protected, during my crafty moments, from Rowdy Wyatt (who has never learned to WALK and seems to think that running is the best way to get around). I've had a few people ask me..."How do you do it? How do you find time with a new baby in the house?"

...Well, I keep him close to me at all times ;)

By the way...I'm sorry for the long delay in posts :( But please excuse me...It was a holiday weekend ya know ;)